


Five Times Bucky Almost Killed Steve and One Time He Didn't

by Winterstar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, friendship in the foreground, relationship in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky Almost Killed Steve and One Time He Didn't

1.  
The first time Bucky tries to kill Steve, it’s about two in the damned morning and they holed up in a safe house somewhere east of Istanbul. Now, Sam happens to be a reasonable person, lots of common sense, but he’s just about had it when Winter boy decides to go ape shit crazy and knife Steve in the shoulder when all the poor guy was trying to do was wake his friend up from a nightmare.

It takes all the strength Sam can muster after a five day trek through the wilds of the Koroglu Mountains trying to save this mother’s ass. He ends up with a choke hold around Bucky’s neck and Steve hollering at him to ease off.

“What the?” Sam says and tightens his grip around Bucky’s neck which is a miracle and should be praised since the man has a damned metal arm and is trying his best to break Sam’s arm with it. “He just fucking stabbed you, or haven’t you noticed the copious amounts of blood streaming down your chest?”

“I said, ease off,” Steve stumbles off his cot. He looks down at his shoulder and sees the stream of blood. It doesn’t change his attitude, nothing fazes him, and Sam’s about to knock the lug in the head and tell him that once in a while it is a good idea to take care of number one first, but shit he has an armful of Winter Soldier.

Before Steve can protest, it is Bucky who coughs out a reply, “Sorry, sorry, I just-.”

Sam relaxes a degree and Bucky slumps in his arms. Steve rushes to his side and Sam watches as he gently helps the man to his feet and leads him back to his bunk. After Steve settles Bucky back into the bed and ensures that he’s quiet and sleeping, Sam’s able to convince Steve to let him patch up the slice to the shoulder.

It isn’t deep, so Sam works in silence. He doesn’t reprimand or call out that they are living with a known assassin who isn’t mentally stable. When he finishes Steve ducks his head and says, “Thanks Sam.”

“No problem.”

Steve looks over to the occupied bed and says, “For everything.”

Sam only nods. He knows how it feels to lose.

~~2~~  
Steve is falling, plummeting off the side of a cliff face. Sam kicks out at the Hydra agent in front of him, because he has only one chance to jump and save Steve. He cannot believe what he just saw – and that is that Bucky literally shoved Steve off the side of a damned mountain. That is not how you protect someone’s six. Before the Hydra agent can whip out his weapon again, Sam races to the cliff’s edge and leaps off. He spots Steve immediately, plunging toward the river and, most probably, his death.

The wings of his Falcon pararescue flight suit spread out, but then he closes them up against his side. He flips downward and bullets his body toward Steve. He rockets with the repulsion of his backpack toward Steve, coming up on him in little time. He reaches out, catches hold of Steve’s arm and then opens the wings to assist their flight back up the mountainside. Hitting the accelerator the rocket propulsion roars to life and he hauls them to the plateau where the Winter Soldier combats the remnants of a Hydra party tracking them over the last week.

He drops Steve who takes off running toward his friend’s side without question. Sam only shakes his head and follows suit. He pledged to help Captain America, even if he thinks that the good Captain needs a firm whack in the head and some clarity in the arena of the Winter Soldier.

As he aims his guns at the group of Hydra, Sam decides it’s time to get the other Avengers involved.

~~3~~  
The third time is completely unintentional (as far as Sam can tell) considering Steve and Bucky are working out and beating on each other with a fair amount of gusto. When Bucky slams his metal fist into Steve’s face and he flies across the room, the only thing that Sam actually hears is the sound of Steve’s jaw cracking.

It must be the broken bone that puts Steve off his game because he doesn’t try and break his own fall, and ends up smashing into the doorframe and splitting his head open, too. Bucky is contrite. He spends half of the time asking for someone to remove the metal arm, and the other half looking a little green himself. Steve is sick and puking. Sam is all kinds of pissed off.

He spends the rest of the evening in the emergency room instead of wooing a very tough to crack Natasha.

He thinks he never wants to watch Captain America puke again. It’s undignified and the Cap – well, it does all kinds of things to the image. Sam makes Steve promise never to puke again. But he knows that smirk and he knows he’s being played but he’ll take it rather than watching that display any day of the week.

~~4~~  
Along the way, Sam finds out that milk is a bad thing – a trigger for Bucky. Bucky tried to kill Steve when Steve offered him a glass of milk. It happens to be one of the most bizarre moments of his time in Avengers’ Tower. Sam had only just walked into the common kitchen to witness Steve pulling out a carton of milk. He sets the carton on the counter and retrieves a glass from the cupboard. 

“Want some milk?” Steve says. It seems like an innocent thing to ask.

Looking up, Bucky, who happens to be at the cutting board slicing onions for an omelet, doesn’t react at first when Steve pours the milk. He freezes when Steve, mid-pour puts the milk carton down and goes back to the refrigerator. The glass holds less than 2 ounces of the 8 ounces it could hold of milk. The weirdest things set him off Sam decides when he sees Bucky launch his entire body across the room, tackle Steve, and try and slice Steve’s throat with the blade.

JARVIS sounds the alert and, suddenly, Thor is in the room and plucks Bucky off Steve like he’s an annoying insect. The knock to the head when Bucky hits the corner of the kitchen cupboards brings some sense back to him (and also another night in the emergency room as they watch Winter boy puke his guts out). 

No one ever pours milk again in front of Bucky.

~~5~~  
One night they are all huddled around in the common room, debating what movie to watch. Steve and Bucky are trying to figure out what is the best movie for Thor – since they are the best in evaluating culturally significant movies. Barton finds this all kinds of funny. Stark sits with his one hand carding through Steve’s hair. Sam’s not sure when that all started but they’ve been pretty quiet about it.

Natasha and Bruce are busy flipping through the possibilities on the screen as JARVIS offers different genres (and his own opinion). Eventually, Bucky shakes his head and says, “It’s nothing like that time.”

“How would you know, you haven’t even seen the movie,” Barton says.

“Clint, you don’t know how it was back then,” Steve says. “So if you get to judge then so does he.”

Barton only scowls at Winter boy, who surprisingly doesn’t go ape-shit on him. Sam doesn’t know why this makes him feel special, but Bucky always seems to react more strongly to Sam than to the others. Does that mean Winter boy has accepted Sam or not? They have a special bond, Sam thinks.

The conversation has drifted while he considered whether or not they’ve made progress in their tentative friendship. 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Sure the hell was,” Bucky says. “You were like about as heavy as dust mop and as healthy as one, too.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Steve says. 

“Sleeping on the floor on a bunch of cushions wasn’t a great idea.”

“Better than sleeping on the street when ol’ man Fisher kicked me out of the flat.” Steve shrugs as he reaches back to wrap his one arm around Tony’s shoulder.

“Don’t tell me, he insisted he was okay?” Tony says, a twinkle of fondness in his eyes as he regards Steve.

“Something like that,” Bucky says and shrugs. “He about died of pneumonia because he didn’t want to tell me my idea of him sleeping our couch cushions on the floor was a bad idea. Punk, just nearly croaked because of it and his asthma.”

“You still saved me, Bucky,” Steve murmurs.

“Not before I tried to kill you, though.” Bucky says and then a look crosses over his features. He stands up and the darkness of his memories follow him. He leaves the room without a word, Steve calls to him, but he doesn’t return.

“Go,” Tony says.

Steve nods and follows. The rest of the night, Steve spends on the balcony talking Bucky down. Sam’s not certain who saved whom, but he knows the two of them are inexplicably bound together.

~~+1~~  
“Maybe you should do it,” Bucky says and fidgets as Sam fixes his bowtie. 

“He didn’t ask me,” Sam replies and pushes the pocket square in place. “You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky says and his eyes are everywhere, in the small room of the mansion. “I had a nightmare last night.” 

Sam looks up to his eyes, but then back down again, not waiting to spook him. “Your mind is processing. You woke up, realized it was a nightmare, did you act on it?”

Bucky scoffs. “No, of course not.”

“That’s progress, bro.” Sam pats the square straight. “Hate these damned things.”

“What if I?” Bucky tugs away from Sam. “What if I freak out, during the ceremony? What if I try and hurt someone.”

“Why would you? You’re not going to.”

“How do you know?” Bucky says and scrubs a hand through his hair, making a mess of it again.

“Sit down,” Sam says and when Bucky doesn’t move to do it, he repeats it in a commanding voice. “Just sit down.”

Bucky settles into the chair and Sam retrieves a brush. He gives it to Bucky. “Brush your hair.”

“What the?”

“First of all, you look like something the cat dragged in, and second, doing normal everyday things helps, believe me.”

Bucky lifts the brush and starts to comb his hair. “I don’t want to ruin this for Steve.”

“You won’t.”

“I want him to be happy, you know?” Bucky says and drops the brush. “He means everything to me, he’s my only-.”

Sam grabs Bucky’s shoulder and squeezes. A year ago he wouldn’t have been able to do it. “You’ve shown how much you care. Shit, I’m surprised that you didn’t freak out on him when you found out about him and Stark.”

Bucky shrugs, picks up the brush and starts again. “Don’t know about that, I always knew about Steve. I tried to set him up with girls, but he only half-heartedly tried. Girls would have gone for him. Little sick puppy, they would’ve liked to take care of him.”

“Don’t let any of the ladies hear you say that in today’s world,” Sam says.

“Oh I know, Natasha would squeeze my brains out with her thighs,” Bucky remarks. He sighs and puts the brush down. “Thanks, Sam.”

“No problem, you ready, best man?”

Bucky smiles. “Let’s go watch my boy get married to a Stark. Still can’t fucking believe that.”

“He got himself quite a catch, didn’t he?” Sam says and grins.

As they enter the vestibule where the wedding party awaits, Sam glimpses Steve off to the side in his white tux and his vibrant blue eyes. Sam catches Bucky nod to Steve and then he murmurs, “I think that Stark is the one making out on this deal.”

“I think they both are.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says after a moment’s pause. “Yeah, they are.”

Sam pats Bucky’s arm again, the metal one, and he doesn’t react, just smiles at him and the ceremony begins, and new life starts.

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com) if you want. Mainly a Stony fan but love Steve and Bucky as well. Okay I'll admit, I love Steve with just about anyone.......


End file.
